Maks Suard, 48, had told Trieste’s bishop – during a telephone conversation days earlier – of historic acts on a 13-year-old girl, according to AFP.

He then asked His Grace Giampaolo Crepaldi for two days to prepare a letter begging forgiveness to God, the Church and the victim, reported the news agency.

But, when the bishop arrived on Tuesday (October 28) afternoon to officially notify the priest of his firing from the parish, he found him hanged in the church’s vestry.

​The Trieste diocese asked in a statement that people pray for the soul of the priest. The diocese also expressed regrets that the case could not follow its “canon and judicial path” which could have brought the priest “a human and Christian recovery desirable in the respect of the laws”.